Streamline your social media strategy

A successful social media strategy will take time, so make your efforts as efficient as possible. “There's no doubt that social media can be time consuming,” says Robert Sofia, co-founder of coaching firm Platinum Advisor Strategies. Don't let this overwhelm you, he adds. “You shouldn't feel like you need to be on social media all day.” The remedy? Budget your time. “Budget a mere 15 minutes in the morning and 15 minutes at the end of the day to update and review your profiles,” Sofia says. He also recommends hiring an outside company to create some posts and status updates for you, which you can then supplement with your own posts. “While you should be using social media, your time is better spent in front of current and potential clients,” Sofia says. For busy advisors, Maggie Crowley, marketing coordinator for Advisor Websites offers another option. “One way to lighten the load, so to speak, is to use a tool like Hootsuite to streamline all of your social media efforts,” Crowley says. Hootsuite is an automated service that allows users to schedule posts in advance from multiple social media channels. “For instance, you can write one message that will be posted on Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn, at whatever time you choose,” Crowley says. Other social media dashboard applications like Tweetdeck, SocialOomph and NetVibes offer similar capabilities.